Unit

Infrastructure

Leaders

Leader bonus - El Escorial

All units receive +4 Combat Strength against civilizations following a different Religion. Inquisitors have one extra use of their Remove Heresy ability. Inquisitors eliminate 100% presence of other Religions.

Leader agenda - Counter Reformer

Likes civilizations who follow the same Religion as him, and wants his cities to all follow the same Religion. Dislikes those who spread their Religion into his empire.

Contents

Strategy

Treasure Fleet

The civilization ability and unique components of the Spanish encourage them to expand to other continents early and aggressively and pay special attention to intercontinental commerce. Founding coastal cities and building Harbors in them will increase their Trade Route limit and Gold income, as well as allowing them to build a strong navy that can be used to establish beachheads as they expand to new continents or attack and capture cities that other civs have founded there. Spanish Trade Routes will help their new cities grow and develop rapidly, and their Builders can fill the surrounding land with Missions to expedite Spain's Faith (and Science) generation. Harbors (or Commercial Hubs) and Holy Sites should be built in all new Spanish cities; Campuses should also be built often to increase the Science output of adjacent Missions and keep Spain on top of the technological race. A Theater Square or two will help them generate the Culture they need to discover Mercantilism and assemble Fleets and Armadas for naval dominance.

In Rise and Fall, the Spanish can further consolidate their power overseas by building the Casa de Contratación, and increase the Loyalty of cities on continents other than their Capital Capital's continent by building Missions next to their City Centers and assigning Governors to them.

El Escorial

Spain's first priority under Philip II should be to found a religion as quickly as possible, because his leader ability is useless otherwise. They should research Astrology first and either build Stonehenge, or get a Holy Site up and running and adopt a form of government that has a slot for the Revelation Policy Card. They should choose Mosque as one of their beliefs, and the rest should focus on either increasing Gold or Faith output (e.g. Church Property, Pilgrimage, Tithe) or strengthening their military and religious units (e.g. Defender of the Faith, Holy Order). Once they have a well-developed religion, they should spread it far and wide while they expand to as many continents as possible.

With Gunpowder, Spain gains access to the Conquistador and can start spreading their religion at gunpoint. A few Conquistadors stacked with Missionaries, Inquisitors, or Apostles (with the Chaplain promotion, if possible) and some ranged and siege units to support them will be able to crush the armies of other religious civs and convert any cities they capture to Spain's religion, increasing the religious pressure on their foes' remaining cities and bringing Spain closer to a Religious Victory. The Spanish may want to refrain from upgrading at least one Conquistador in the later eras of the game, and send it along with their main army for the purpose of converting captured cities.

Of course, when seeking a Religious Victory, converting cities is more important than conquering them. Even when they're at peace with their neighbors, the Spanish should send a steady stream of Missionaries and Apostles into their lands to spread their religion and extirpate any others. They may want to build the Mahabodhi Temple and the Hagia Sophia to help with this endeavor.

Victory Types

The Spanish are best suited for a Religious Victory, though the right selection of religious beliefs and policies can make it easy for them to win a Domination Victory as well. They can potentially pursue a Science Victory if they focus on building Campuses and Industrial Zones and use domestic Trade Routes to boost their cities' Population and Production potential, but Religious and Domination Victories are the more natural options.

Civilopedia entry

Federico Garcia Lorca wrote, “In Spain the dead are more alive than the dead of any other country in the world.” Certainly there were many of them in Spain’s bloody history. Born at the end of the Reconquista with the union of Castile and Aragon, Spain would survive devastating wars and centuries of political unrest, as well as golden ages and religious movements. From its (re)discovery and colonization of the New World, to its world-spanning empire, to its contributions to culture and the romance of life, to its involvement in countless wars, Spain is one of the few nations which can claim an encompassing influence on global civilization.

In 711 AD, the Islamic Umayyad dynasty crossed the Straits from North Africa and swept across Iberia in seven short years, converting or killing the Visigoths there. Despite a shared religion and purpose (profit), the invading Moors were hardly unified; several Moorish kingdoms arose by the onset of the 11th Century, notably the powerful ones centered on Valencia and Granada. The Islamic rulers were fairly tolerant of other faiths, allowing the Jews and Christians in their lands to continue their heathen ways, provided they pay special taxes to do so and submit to a few discriminatory practices. Despite these minor – for the times – discomforts, many locals began to convert to Islam.

But the Moors were a contentious lot, and warfare among them was not unusual. Unfortunately (for them), this in-fighting allowed some of the remaining Christian kingdoms in the north to expand their borders … and ponder “freeing” Iberia from the Muslim yoke. And thus began the Reconquista, a few hundred years of bloodshed as the Christian kingdoms – Leon, Navarre, Aragon, Castile and eventually Portugal – led the crusade to expel the Muslims, encouraged by the Papacy and good Catholics everywhere. Of course, these Christian kingdoms fought among themselves without cessation as well, so Iberia was a muddled mess … until the fateful union of the kingdoms of Castile-Leon and Aragon, joined by the marriage of Isabella I and Ferdinand II in 1469. The two monarchs led a concentrated attack against the last Islamic stronghold of Granada, and in 1492 finally ended the 781-year presence of the Muslims in Iberia.

And to insure that the new realm of Spain stayed Christian, at the urging of the pope Ferdinand and Isabella (mostly the latter) established the Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition. The office was under the direct control of the Spanish monarchy, with the Church advising. A succession of Grand Inquisitors commencing with de Torquemada diligently sought out unrepentant Muslims, Jews, Protestants, Moriscos and anyone else who denied – or might challenge – the rule of Rome. And crimes such as witchcraft, blasphemy, bigamy, sodomy and freemasonry also fell under the Inquisition’s purview. In tribunals across Spain (and spreading to other European kingdoms in diluted form) the accused were tortured, tried and often found guilty. If condemned (and most were), their property was confiscated and they were given the choice of an auto-de-fé (a public return to the true Church) or execution. Of the roughly 150,000 “processed” by the Inquisition until its abolishment in July 1834, some 5000 were put to death. The Inquisition also oversaw the fight against heretical texts, and burned those books censored by the papal indices (but such pyres were not near as entertaining as burning heretics and sodomites, and thus drew far less attention).

Isabella – Ferdinand was more skeptical – also funded a Genoese madman who thought that he could reach the fabulous Far East by sailing west across the open ocean rather than contending with greedy Portugal, which had reached there already by sailing around Africa. In 1492, Christopher Columbus bumped into the New World, and Spain would become the first true “world power” in history. He was followed by adventurers of all ilk, including conquistadors such as Cortez and Pizarro just out for a quick buck, as well as missionaries and colonists with longer-term plans. The Spanish led the world in this “Age of Discovery,” accumulating vast amounts of wealth from their numerous colonies and principalities. At its height, the Spanish Empire counted holdings across the entirety of the known world, from large chunks of North and South America and small pieces of Europe, to various cities in North Africa and the entirety of the East Indies. It was said, and rightfully so, that the sun always shone somewhere (despite the hurricanes, volcanos and smoke from slash-and-burn farming) in the Spanish Empire.

Spain’s new holdings not only provided precious metals, spices and agricultural bounty, it also brought new knowledge and culture to Europe. This Spanish “Golden Age” likewise saw the creation of intellectual and spiritual reforms as well, starting with the rise of humanism, beginnings of the Protestant Reformation (despite the Inquisition’s best efforts), and the founding of the School of Salamanca. But, Spain would expend a lot of treasure and blood to hold its empire together – perhaps more than it was worth in the long run.

With great power comes great burdens, at least if one doesn’t want Barbary pirates and English sea dogs conducting raids along the empire’s coastal holdings. Besides the growing British and Ottoman threats, Spain found itself routinely at war with France. Religious unrest and wars shook the Catholic empire, as the Protestant Reformation dragged it into an increasing number of military engagements across Europe. The Hapsburg monarchs faced revolts in such uncivilized places as Mexico and the Netherlands … and a lot of other locales. What unrest and religious fanaticism didn’t touch, the plague did, and in the 1650s the entire empire was rocked by the Great Plague of Seville.

From this point forward, Spain’s power and influence went into a gradual, and then not-so-gradual, decline. Spain even began to lose her European holdings, primarily the separation of Portugal and the Netherlands, and then suffered military setbacks from the highly destructive Thirty Years' War. Wars and more wars threatened and decimated the once proud empire for the next two centuries. The War of Succession saw the Hapsburgs toppled from the throne and the coming of the Bourbons. The Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 gave the British Gibraltar, an anachronism that continues to this day. At the end of the 18th Century, Napoleon Bonaparte invaded the country by guile, claiming he was on his way to Portugal. Then in the early 19th Century, a nationalist revolt to overthrow their French-occupation government led to the Spanish War of Independence (better known as the Peninsular War). Despite their eventual victory over the French (mostly due to Napoleon’s disastrous Russian campaign) the country was thrown into political turmoil … and so they restored the Bourbons to the throne.

Spain soon found itself on the opposite side of the cause of freedom due to multiple independence movements – most of them violent – in its own foreign colonies. Spanish America was swept by wars of “liberation” (most of the new nations ended up under dictatorships and military juntas) from 1808 through 1833. To the long list of native revolts could be added those in the Philippines, Cuba and others in Africa and Asia. Towards the end of the 19th Century, the United States of America decided to rip off a few pieces from the tottering empire for itself; hence the Spanish-American War.

Although there had briefly (1873-1874) been a Spanish Republic, the monarchy was restored and “constitutional” kings of the Bourbon ilk continued to sit on the throne until 1931. During this period, besides (or perhaps because of) losing the remnants of their empire, the Spanish dreamed of days of cultural glory past – artists such as El Greco and Goya, authors such as de Cervantes and Lope de Vega, composers such as de Sarasate and Fernando Sor underwent a rediscovery and resurgence in popularity. Regional diversity in language and cuisine was celebrated. But the people proved rather more passionate about politics, unfortunately.

With the elections of April 1931 it became evident that a deep rift existed between the Monarchist and the Republican parties. When crowds gathered in the street to protest the economy and the continued Monarchist control of the Cortes Generales, friends advised King Alfonso XIII (fittingly unlucky) to flee, which he promptly did. The Second Spanish Republic did give women the right to vote and acceded to Basque desires for more autonomy, but it didn’t solve the economic or social woes, and so only lasted five years. A rising tide of bloodshed and violence finally resulted in a military coup and a bitter three-year civil war against the democratic, leftist republic … a conflict that devastated the country, caused an estimated half-million casualties, involved contending European powers, and ended with Fascism, in the guise of General Francisco Franco, the law of the land for the next 36 years.

Franco’s death in 1975 gave rise to the restoration of the constitutional monarchy in the person of Juan Carlos I de Borbon y Borbon. The Bourbons were back, this time to stay. With a hand-picked council of advisors and popular backing, the young king proved himself a sensible agent for change. As a result, the Cortes adopted a new mostly-democratic constitution, ratified by popular vote in December 1978. The Spanish could again return to long siestas and dreams of past glory, and celebrating their rich heritage with world-famous festivals and holidays… despite rampant urbanization, industrialization and pollution.